captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> ifill: good evening. i'm gwen ifill. the nation's $1.4 trillion deficit was topic number one in washington today. president obama is planning to call for a three-year freeze on some government spending. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight: the senate rejected a plan to create a bipartisan panel to tackle the deficit. we'll talk to senators kent conrad and judd gregg. >> ifill: then, how are the policy debates in washington affecting the political debates leading up to the midterm elections. >> woodruff: paul solman takes a

real estate tour in atlanta with two experts on housing prices. >> there's reasons to believe it will stay down and there are reasons to believe it's going to come back. that's why you economists drive people crazy. you do understand that. >> absolutely. >> ifill: ray suarez has the story of american doctors and nurses helping to rebuild haiti's shattered health care system. and the obama administration gets an "f" for its ability to respond to a biological attack. >> ifill: that's all ahead on tonight's "pbs newshour." major funding for the pbs newshour is provided by: bank of america

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dedicated to the idea that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy productive life. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> ifill: the spotlight on the deficit came as the congressional budget office warned rising federal debt could strangle the economy. >> woodruff: the flurry of interest and calls to cut spending came from both ends of pennsylvania avenue. from the white house... >> we have to get our fiscal house in order. >> woodruff: ... to congress... >> we can no longer afford to spend money we do not have. >> woodruff: ... the focus in washington today was on red ink and reining in spending. >> this country's going to have to pay the piper.

>> woodruff: the president's proposal to freeze outlays for three years is expected to come next week, when he submits his budget to congress. it would take effect in october, and leave untouched programs like medicare and social security, and national defense. white house spokesman robert gibbs said the cuts would be strategic. >> the president will cut programs that are duplicative or serve what he believes is no important purpose, and instead invest in, as families do, investments for the future. >> woodruff: the proposal would freeze $477 billion out of the $3.5 trillion budget, or about 17% of federal spending. it's designed to save $250 billion over the coming decade. republican leader mitch mcconnell criticized the idea as too small.

>> freezing non-defense domestic discretionary spending would be a good idea. however, if you put into the baseline the stimulus, tarp, and you account for inflation, it's not nearly as big a step as the american people are asking us to take. >> woodruff: the president is expected to address the deficit, among other economic issues, including unemployment, in his state of the union message tomorrow night. in an interview with abc news' diane sawyer, mr. obama acknowledged some choices he will make are not politically popular. >> the one thing i'm clear about is that i'd rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president. i will not slow down in terms of going after the big problems that this country faces. i am not backing off the need for us to tackle these big problems in a serious way. >> woodruff: but new numbers out

today from the congressional budget office confirmed the magnitude of the challenge facing white house officials-- creating jobs while cutting spending. the deficit for the year is predicted to be $1.35 trillion. senators grappled with options to bring down that number. the top two members on the budget committee, chairman kent conrad and republican judd gregg, presented a bipartisan plan to create a task force to reduce the debt. but the plan was voted down. senators also faced a familiar proposal to increase the nation's legal debt limit-- this time, by $1.9 trillion-- enough new borrowing to cover the government's bills through the end of the year. that vote could come as early as the end of the week. for a closer look at all this, i am joined by the two senators who spearheaded the effort to create a bipartisan panel on the debt. from the budget committee,

chairman kent conrad, democrat of north dakota; and its ranking republican, judd gregg of new hampshire. senators, good to see you both. senator conrad, let me start with you. you're into pennsylvania avenue. you hear progressives say right now a recession is not the time to cut spending. the government should be spending, get the economy moving. the deficit will take care of itself when this is over. why is that wrong? >> the deficit won't take care of itself. we are on cruise control to a debt that will be 400% of the gross domestic product of the united states if left unchecked. so, look, i agree up don't raise taxes or cut spending in the midst of a downturn. what we propose is to put in place a process to deal with the long-term debt bomb that overhangs this country, that threatens the economic security of the united states. progressives should support that effort, as many did today, because they understand if you fail to act, social security

is going broke. medicare is going broke. it is not progressive to allow those programs to fail. >> woodruff: senator greg, why is this bipartisan task force idea that the two of you were pushing, why was that the right way to go or why is it the right way to go? >> because these issues are so big, judy, that you can't address them in a partisan way. you have to have everybody at the table. everything has to be on the table-- entitlements and tax issues-- or otherwise the american people don't trust the results. the american people inherently understand if it isn't bipartisan, it probably won't be fair. we set up this task force in a manner that not only was bipartisan but also required super majorities to report. 14 of 18. so that neither side could gain the other. it required super majorities to pass it in the senate so nobody could game anybody. the results of this task force would be seen as fair, honest and bipartisan, and would have popular support which is very important.

any initiative that affects these types of programs like medicare, medicaid and taxes. >> woodruff: if it was such a good idea, why were you not able to persuade enough of your colleagues you needed a super majority to pass it. you didn't get that. >> we got a majority. we got 53. if all senators had been present and voting we'd have had 54. that is a remarkable move from where we have been in the past. no, we didn't have a super majority. part of the reason is left and right, organizations on the left organized to oppose it. organizations on the right did the same. and still we managed to get a majority in the united states senate. i think that says there is momentum building behind the idea we have got to deal with the debt threat facing this country. >> woodruff: senator greg, what do you say to members of your own party who voted against this because they said it would have likely led to a tax increase. >> i say you have to have more confidence in our membership. i mean 8 of the 16 members appointed from the congress are going to be republican members. they were going to be appointed by senator mcconnell

the republican leader here in the senate and four by house member boehner, the republican lead er in the house. i'm sure they wouldn't put people on this commission who would undermine the basic republican philosophy and how you approach tax policy just like i don't expect speaker pelosi or speaker reed to do that in the area of, say, social security. that's why this commission would have been successful because you would have had people at the table first who understand the issues which is very important and who have a commitment to doing something about the issues but also who carry their portfolios of their various constituencies of the two parties. so any product they produce, i believe, would have gotten strong support. i believe it wouldn't have solved the whole problem. we doesn't couldn't do that but it would have been a significant step down the road towards getting this problem under control. remember, this problem is undeniable. we are facing a fiscal bankruptcy of this nation within 7 to 10 years if we do not step up and start to do something about controlling the size of the debt of our country. >> woodruff: senator conrad, now ha that it has gone down for now, we're told that the

white house says the president is considering appointing by executive order a group that would do something similar. would that be effective some. >> look, the reason senator greg and i fashioned the plan that we did, a statutory commission, is because that's the only way you can get a guarantee that the recommendations of that group will be actually voted on by the members of congress. so, we have proposed something we thought was the most effective way to go. are there other alternatives? certainly there are. but i still believe a statutory commission that would require a vote on the recommendations of the group is the best way to go. >> woodruff: senator greg, what's your take on the idea of the president appointing a panel to do something? >> i don't think it gets where we need to go. there are four basic problems with that. first it's not bipartisan. you actually have to have something voted out of the congress in a bipartisan way. secondly it is is not fast tracked and can't be fast tracked.

it is not an up or down vote and it can't be. it's amendable. that doesn't work. so you have to have the statutory structure in order basically to deliver a product to the floor of the senate which can actually be voted on and can get something done. i don't think an executive order can accomplish that. >> woodruff: meanwhile, senator conrad, what we were hearing today from the white house is the president does plan to propose this spending freeze three years discretionary spending. is this something that would be helpful? >> yes, certainly. that is a move in the right direction. i think we have to understand when you're talking about just 17% of the budget-- and that's what non-security domestic discretionary spending represents -- a three-year freeze is useful. but that's not going to solve the prob problem. what the country faces is a tsunami of debt. what we have to understand is how fundamentally that threatens the long-term economic security of america and that's why senator greg

and i worked together and again i'm delighted that 53 of our colleagues voted with us. but we need more. we need people across the country to send a message to our colleagues that this is something that must be done. >> woodruff: senator greg, is the president's freeze proposal a good start or as some of your republican colleagues have said today, too little too late. >> it is a good start if it's true. we haven't seen the specifics of the plan. $25 billion on a $1.4 trillion deficit. so you can get a pretty good idea that it's not going to move us very far down the road towards relieving the pressure that we're going to feel as a nation. very interesting thing happened today. it's likely that the japanese debt will be downgraded because they're about five years ahead of us in their problems relative to their debt. that's coming at us. we can't afford to do that to our children. one generation should never pass on to another generation a less prosperous nation. that's what we're going to do unless we do something about

all this debt we're loading on our kids' backs. >> woodruff: where do you go from here? senator conrad, you didn't get the 60 votes today. what do you do? >> keep working, keep fighting and keep proposing. you keep searching for a way to accomplish the result. i have said i will not support any long-term extension of the debt , absent a credible commission being put in place. by "credible," i mean one that provides an assurance that there is a vote on the recommendations of the commission. i think that is essential. >> woodruff: and, senator greg, the two of you are working together-- a republican and a democrat-- but are your colleagues, republicans and democrats, going to be ale to come together on this? >> well, i think senator conrad is right. i mean we have 53 votes here. that was a pretty big vote. it was bipartisan. i think we just have to keep pushing the ball up the hill. you know, one of the reasons i opposed this huge extension of the debt limit, $1.9 trillion is i think we should revisit this issue later in the spring and the debt limit is the

right vehicle to do it on. i'm hopeful we'll have another chance to come back to this issue later in the spring and take it up again because i think the american people understand it. they understand that they can't possibly manage their household if they were doing their household what the federal government is doing to the federal finances. they want us to step up and do something serious. this is the most serious proposal and really i think the only one that's going to have any opportunity to be viable. sneeb we will come back and check on how that ball is moving up the hill. thank you both, gentlemen. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> ifill: now, for the other news of the day, we go to hari sreenivasan in our newsroom. >> sreenivasan: in iraq today, a suicide car bomber attacked a police crime lab in baghdad. at least 22 iraqis were killed and 80 more injured. rescue crews combed through the rubble and cleared debris, only to find most of the dead and injured were police officers. the blast follows the execution of saddam hussein's cousin, known as "chemical ali", and raised speculation that today's attacks were retaliation by sunni insurgents.

but the top u.s. commander in iraq, army general ray odierno, said he saw "absolutely no connection" between the two. an american base inside kabul was the target of a suicide bomb attack. 14 people were wounded, including eight americans. the bomber set off a minivan packed with explosives near camp phoenix. the taliban claimed responsibility for it, saying the bomber was aiming at a civilian convoy. it comes just over a week after taliban gunmen launched an assault on kabul that brought the capital city to a standstill. the los angeles city council gave final approval to close most shops that sell medical marijuana. there are currently between 800 and a thousand pot clinics operating across l.a. but under the new rules, that number will be capped at 70. mayor antonio villaraigosa still has to give his approval for the ordinance to take effect. on wall street today, stocks made early gains, but those faded in the closing minutes of trading. the dow jones industrial average lost more than two points to close at 10, 194.

the nasdaq fell seven points to close over 2,203. former republican senator charles mathias has died at his home in maryland of complications from parkinson's disease. mathias represented the state of maryland for 26 years in both the house and senate until his retirement in 1987. as a liberal republican, he championed civil rights, opposed the nixon administration's policy on the vietnam war, and worked to clean up the chesapeake bay. mathias was 87 years old. those are some of the day's main stories. i'll be back at the end of the program with a preview of what you'll find tonight on the newshour's web site. but for now, back to judy. >> woodruff: and still to come on the newshour: housing prices-- going up or staying down? partners in health care in haiti; and failing grades on a weapons test. that follows our look at two key senate contests. if president obama didn't already have enough on his plate when it comes to policy issues, now the political ground is shifting under his feet as well, even on home turf.

in delaware, the u.s. senate seat vice-president joe biden held for 36 years is up for grabs. but democratic attorney general joseph "beau" biden-- the vice- president's son-- announced this week he will not run to succeed his father. and the odds immediately shifted to favor republican mike castle, an eight-term congressman who also served as the state's governor from 1985 to 1993. and in illinois, a strong republican challenge is taking shape for the seat mr. obama vacated when he became president. a new "chicago tribune" poll has five-term congressman mark kirk holding a strong lead in the republican primary contest, and state treasurer alexi giannoulias holding a narrower edge on the democratic side. illinois primary voters go to the polls next tuesday. here to explain the choices those voters will face, are stuart rothenberg, editor and publisher of "the rothenberg

political report". he tracks congressional races across the nation; michael mezey, professor of political science at depaul university in chicago; and joseph pika, interim associate dean of the college of arts and sciences at the university of delaware. welcome to you all. professor pika, i want to start with you. bring us up to date on what happened in delaware. why didn't bo biden run as was so widely expected? >> as attorney general biden explained, in his decision, he really felt he was committed to pursuing the attorney general's office and particularly the prosecution of a very, very celebrated case in our southern most county of a pediatrician who had abused patients, primarily young girls who were in his care. this has been such a horrendous case where the allegations are just so outrageous

that he felt that it would be wrong for him to step down from the attorney general's office when he confronted this enormous challenge and on a case which is so high-profile here in the states. >> ifill: it's fair to say this puts mike castle who is a popular former governor in a small state in the cat bird's seat. >> absolutely. he's been one of the most successful politicians that delaware has ever seen. he's been in elected office since 1966 with the exception of three years before he really moved in to the lieutenant governor's office. and so he has been returned to office repeatedly and has won basically a dozen contests on statewide level. so he's a very, very successful politician here. >> ifill: that's one democratic seat that looks like it mate be heading republican. let's go to illinois. professor mezey, what do we know about what's happening in

illinois and do we see perhaps echos of massachusetts? >> well, gwen, there are some echots here. first of all, we have a democratic candidate who, like the democratic candidate in massachusetts, may need a bit of a charisma transplant. if he wins the primary, he is not the most exciting candidate. on the other hand, mark kirk is a... in some respects the democrats' worst nightmare. you have a very moderate republican, a person who is pro-choice, who has a d-rating from the national rifle association, so he's anti-gun. he has got a strong rating from the human rights coalition in terms of gay issues. he's voted for cap-and-trade. so it's going to be very difficult for any democratic candidate to paint him as a

far right person. and i think that creates here in illinois a blue state not quite as blue as massachusetts but certainly a blue state. it's a republican who has the best chance of winning of beating a democrat. >> ifill: in a state where barack obama was so recently the senator and where there is some residual affection for the president, one presumes, why isn't this seat a lock for the democrats? >> well, i think the republicans will likely, assuming mark kirk is nominate-- and i think he will be-- he's a very strong candidate. i think the democrats have not come up with a very strong list of candidates to oppose kirk. in addition, given the problems of our ex-governor blagojevich, it's not a particularly good year locally for democrats. governor blagojevich or former gaffe nor blagojevich is likely to be on trial in the middle of the race this fall.

that's going to tar virtually any democrat on the ballot. so, that is a challenge for the democrats. i don't think it's a slam dunk for the republicans, as joe seems to think delaware is, but it's going to be a very competitive race. >> ifill: blagojevich may also turn up on celebrity apprentice, i gather, steve. why is it that that ... neither of these candidates, neither of these republicans are considered to be conservatives in the way that scott brown was. the tea party movement is not embracing them whachlt is different and what's the same. >> these are both moderates. kirk , they are after him. in delaware republicans have rallied behind much castle because there's not much of a republican party left. he's the only guy in town. gwen, what i'd say is that these races you have to evaluate races on two levels. the local circumstances and then the national dynamics.

in the case of the local circumstances in both places, republicans have unusually strong candidates who can appeal to independent voters and swing voters. and the democratic field in one state is nonexistent. in the other it's not what democrats were hoping for. they wanted a statewide elected official to be a nominee. that didn't happen. the candidate recruitment was critical. then the national dynamics are dramatically reversed from two years ago. >> ifill: let's talk about it a little bit. the national mood is generally considered to be cranky right now. does that translate in races like this or in other races around country that you're watch something. >> absolutely. first of all people think that the country is headed off on the wrong track. if you look at any of the national polls, is the country headed in the right direction or off on the right direction? the right direction numbers are in the mid 30s while the wrong track goes from 55 to the low 60s. almost 6 out of 10 americans think that things need to be changed. we'ring if in the wrong direction. that benefits the out party.

second of all there's the check argument about the check on democrats in washington. cnn asked do you think it's good for the country or bad for the country that the democratic party is in control of congress? in june of 2007, the democrats have taken over congress but the republicans still had the white house. george w. bush unpopular. 57% of americans said it's good that the democrats party is in control of congress. in june of this year when the democrats controlled everything, that number was down to 50. last week in the most recent cnn numbers good for the country? 45. bad for the country, 48. >> ifill: does this all blow back on president obama or are these primarily, i'm thinking also of florida and i'm thinking of other states and nevada where harry reid has got a tough go of it and pennsylvania where arlen specter has a tough go of it, does this also reflect back on president obama, the white house seems a little alarmed. >> no question about it. it's a combination again. pretty good republican recruiting.

and an environment that's fundamentally shifted as voters say, wait a minute, we're unhappy. too far too fast. some democratic voters saying we're not going far enough fast enough. but generally dissatisfaction, fear, worry, concern, anger all those emotions all benefiting the out party. the guys talking about change. it's just like two years ago and four years ago, gwen, just a different party. >> ifill: change goes the other way this time. professor pika, in delaware, what are the issues which are driving people to the polls, keeping them home fro the polls, making them content or discontent. >> i think the biggest issue coming up will be jobs. delaware has lost a significant number of jobs particularly blue-collar jobs in northern delaware. the economy really hasn't bounced back at all. the concern is, i think, about continued budget stringency in the state. so i think that there will be a lot of concern about the potential for increased taxes and resistance to that. i think further down the list

there will be some concern about health care and certainly education is an issue area that remains very important to delawareians. but i think in general, there's a growing sense of impatience. i think the term cranky is right. i think it captures the mood here. i think there's a feeling that we really need to get back on firm footing and kind of move this forward. >> ifill: are they cranky in illinois too. >> just as cranky as they are in delaware, perhaps more so. i think that we just need a little perspective though. i obviously agree with much of what stewart said. we still are a good ten months away from election day. if the economy turns a bit, if there's some improvement in unemployment, i think some of that mood may dissipate a little bit. another perspective one can argue is that while certainly

there's antipathy to the democratic party, there may also be an antipathy to incumbents in general. mark kirk and mike castle both have been incumbents. it will be a little bit difficult for each one to run saying they're going to clean up the mess in washington when they've each been part of washington for such a long time. whoever the democratic capped date is will run as an outsider who may be able to make a credible campaign promise that he is not part of the mess and will go to washington to clean things up. >> ifill: professor michael mezey, professor joe pika and the non-cranky stewart rothenberg. >> i can be cranky. >> ifill: thank you all very much. >> woodruff: next, the housing market. today's release of the standard & poor's case-shiller home price index showed sales prices rose slightly from october to november by .2% that's on a seasonally adjusted basis.

but prices were down over 5% compared to november 2008. newshour economics correspondent paul solman went on a tour of atlanta real estate with the men who developed the index. it's part of his reporting, "making sense of financial news". >> reporter: real estate broker ennis antoine, taking two of americas top experts on housing prices-- economists karl case and robert shiller-- to a development minutes from downtown atlanta. >> how many bedrooms? >> three bedrooms, two baths, granite, hardwood floors, stainless steel appliances >> so these are really nice places? >> very nice places. >> reporter: 16 very nice places in a very nasty market. woodlawn estates, a would-be gated community, broke ground in 2005-- the atlanta market taking off. just a year later, phase one was done. local demand at that point? unhinged. >> the wheels came off the third quarter, june of '06.

that's when everything started falling apart. people stopped paying their mortgages, they weren't qualifying, foreclosure inventory went up. and that's when everybody realized, whoa, maybe the credit was too easy for most people. >> reporter: so only two of the 16 units sold. but ennis antoine's been betting on the $8,000 federal tax credit, extended through the spring. >> and we also had a state tax credit of $1,800 which, if you're a first time home buyer, you've got $9,800 just to buy a home. couple that with lower interest rate and low prices, its a great time to buy. we had one of our best months in october and november, great months. >> reporter: in fact, atlanta home prices rose 2% in november, the first year-over-year increase since 2007. and a national index of home prices was up for the sixth month in a row. that's the case-shiller index-- case, shiller ... created by karl case and bob

shiller. you've looked at data back into the 19th century. so where are we now looking from a long-term perspective? >> we've had the biggest bubble in american history, as regards to the whole market. it was everywhere and it was huge, and it peaked... it went up for almost 9 years up to 2006, and its been going down now for over three years. >> reporter: and that suggests that its going to go down more? it's going to come back? i mean, looking again long term, what's your best guess? >> well, there are reasons to believe it's going to stay down and there are reasons to believe it's going to come back but... >> reporter: you know that's why economists drive people crazy! you understand that? absolutely! but here's the thing-- prices are down 30%. we believe that when prices go down, people buy more! so the attractiveness of this property when prices have been falling for three years is pretty high.

>> reporter: so attractive that bob shiller-- a long-time newshour guest who warned early and incessantly about both the stock market and real estate bubbles-- now worries that another bubble could be forming. >> people have gotten very speculative and very quick to respond to changes, and they think that the recession is over and want to buy before the market turns up very much. and so you want to buy in advance and ahead, and that sparks new speculative excitement. >> reporter: but chip case-- normally more optimistic than shiller-- fears another crash more than another bubble. >> we did 6.5 million home sales this year-- that's a huge number. but it's not for sure that this is the bottom. i mean, if you look at the four states where half the foreclosure auctions have come from, there's just a huge inventory still there. it's going to take a while for that to clear. >> reporter: those are?

>> florida, california, arizona and nevada. >> reporter: meanwhile, all across america, developments like woodlawn estates sit vacant. and so 14 units here recently went to auction. >> the starting bid is $50,000. >> reporter: $50,000. >> $50,000. >> reporter: what are they going to go for do you expect? >> probably $100-105,000. >> reporter: almost two thirds off the quarter million dollar asking price. a steal! in the car coming over here, when ennis told us that these things were starting off at $50,000, you both independently said: "gee, maybe i'll buy one of these!" you are the speculative fever! that's it's a sense of opportunity that is exciting some people right now. >> reporter: and in atlanta, says ennis antoine, the inventory of unsold homes is down to 65,000.

>> we like to see $50,000 - $55,000, but in '07 and '08, we've seen it higher than 100,000. so its definitely improving as inventory is being reduced. >> reporter: but you're not way down to where you had been historically? >> no sir. not at all. but were getting towards that point. so we should be there by the second quarter of 2010. >> reporter: supporting the optimism, says professor case: only half-a-million new homes are being built at the moment. >> 540,000-550,000 - that's the lowest level in 50 years and its been that low now for a full year. we're absolutely producing nothing relative to what we've produced over the last 50 years. >> reporter: so that means that fewer homes are available, the prices are down, interest rates are low. >> sales are up. >> reporter: sales are up. so that means things will get better. is that true? >> that's what it would seem. >> reporter: and yet, those darned two-handed economists keep looking at their data. >> we saw prices jump up since

april according to the case- shiller index, but lately, it's been weakening again. in fact, with our latest numbers its just flat and i worry that there's, you know, it was driven too much by these tax credits and government support and the sense of the end of the recession, and it might just slip back into further decline. >> there are 15 million unemployed people in the united states. >> reporter: at least. >> that's a big number, and the duration is longer than its been ever. and you add on top of that the incredible difficulty of getting these properties through the foreclosure process, there's three million properties in foreclosure like these units and its not over. we're not out of the woods. >> reporter: or, thinking globally but speaking locally, not out of the woodlawn estates. >> ifill: and now to haiti, where u.s. troops pulled another man alive out of the rubble, two weeks after the earthquake struck, according to reuters. hundreds of thousands of survivors still find themselves camping on the streets of the capital, port-au-prince. today, haitian president rene preval asked the international

community to provide 200,000 tents to shelter some of the one million haitians left homeless by the quake. separately, a state department spokesman said the u.s. death toll in the quake now numbers close to 100. and lieutenant general ken keen, the u.s. commander on the ground, said american troops will stay as long as they're needed. that effort includes rebuilding haiti's now-shattered health care system. ray suarez reports from port-au- prince on the long road ahead. >> suarez: when the buildings came crashing down, the patients came rushing in. and two weeks on, the living are scattered in hospitals on both sides of the haitian-dominican border. many have badly damaged bodies, many in hospital beds have nowhere else to go. but after the initial trauma, haiti is now turning a corner. >> the major challenge now is post-op care, and what we would call in the medical profession, discharge planning. how do you discharge a patient and assure quality care when they are homeless?

and how do you make sure that infections don't develop? how do you make sure that bandages are changed for amputees or wounds that have been debrided? and i would say this phase is the most difficult phase because, soon, all the groups here now will pull out. >> suarez: dr david walton is american. he's spent most of his adult life caring for the people of haiti. eight months of the year, he works for partners in health, an american medical n.g.o. its mission-- assist haitian doctors and nurses and an overburdened ministry of health by helping create, not impose, solutions. its expertise here has proven vital, and has uniquely positioned it to help rebuild haiti's shattered health system. now, a small army of volunteers has arrived as varied as the colors on their backs-- norwegian red cross, e.m.t.s from brooklyn, international medical corps, to name a few,

all working under the watchful eye of the 82nd airborne division of the u.s. army. >> suarez: walton stressed that he works for general hospitals director dr. alix lassegue, who took me through the darkened streets of his hospital's complex to juvenile wards where exhausted amputees lie awake in stifling heat. i ask him when there'll be room for these patients indoors. he says there already is. this building has been inspected by engineers, and they've decided that its perfectly usable and occupiable. and the patients, after the aftershocks, are too nervous to be treated inside, so they are out here in these tents. that's just one of a mountain of challenges for dr. lassegue. many of his staff died; others are scattered, attending to injured and dead family members in the ruins of their homes. he's providing care for a patient population that is also

largely homeless, and he can hardly send amputees to live on the sidewalk in front of the ruins of their home. >> the government is on the way to set up some tent village where we could have discharge person. >> suarez: frightened patients, a doctor shortage when the volunteers go home, nowhere to send the recovering-- it's monumental, really. but this building is a constant reminder to all at the hospital of what the country's lost. up to 150 second-year nursing students at this, haiti's only public teaching hospital, were killed when the building where they trained collapsed. the recovery has only begun, and the smell of human remains stings the air. but haiti's medical challenges, and partners in health's role in the response, range far from port-au-prince. thousands of injured headed out of the capital to other parts of haiti, many taking the bone- jarring two-plus hour trip up

rutted roads through haiti's beautiful and poverty-stricken central plateau, to one of the only places they could get help in those terrible first days-- the 25 year-old zanmi lasante medical complex in cange. earthquake victims poured in from the capital, tripling the patient load at the small hospital, and overwhelming a place more accustomed to dealing with h.i.v. and tuberculosis than with challenging surgical patients. they filled the hospital wards, then filled the church with the suffering. 100 doctors and 400 to 500 nurses showed up. the remote clinic shot 1,150 x-rays in that first week. dr. maxy raymondville, an obstetrician and gynecologist with partners in health. >> we lost all communication w port-au-prince. the cell phone, they are not working and i say, "whoa, we are in trouble." and quickly, trucks bringing patients started to arrive, and we don't know how they reached here. the emergency room was packed

with 40, 50. in less than two days, it was more than 150 lying everywhere. ♪ >> suarez: the haitian episcopal priest who founded this operation, father fritz lafontant, brought prayers and song to the quake victims packing his little hospital. quietly singing along was a young seminarian, ben-jean falot. the 29-year-old had just finished making a presentation at a seminar when the quake began. he was trapped in the rubble for 18 hours, and lost his right arm. >> ( translated ): we had just finished the seminar, and i was going to another seminar when the earthquake hit and the house fell down. >> suarez: ben-jean was right- handed, and told me he hadn't

thought much about his life ahead with one arm. he just thanked god he was alive. that transitional problem-- what to do with the recovering, but no longer seriously ill-- is even more challenging here in cange, far, far from where these patients live, or used to live. >> they don't have anyplace to go. i keep talking to everyone, asking "where are you living in port-au-prince?" they say, "i don't have any home." i said, "okay, you need to think about discharge." and some of them will need follow up. we don't know exactly how we are going to deal with that. >> suarez: all the doctors we spoke with want to remind you of one thing-- this is not a crisis that will be over in a week or a month. port-au-prince's pulverized health infrastructure, and the lives of its most ill patients, will take years to fix. and dr. lassegue says, while he's grateful for outside help,

he wants to tell donors that the solutions and the new health systems will have to be run by haitians, for haitians, even if they're funded from outside. >> we know we need help, but this is our plan. this is our vision of haiti in 25 years to come. so, help us. i may follow your advice, but don't tell me, "do this or do that." but don't forget-- it's my country, not yours. >> suarez: he knows most of the new help will go home, eventually, but he doesn't want haiti totally on its own when that happens. while general hospital copes, the crisis is far from over. it's well understood that many of the injured remain out in port-au-prince's neighborhoods. so, aid organizations like

the international medical corps are sending teams out into the makeshift camps day after day, pushing back against this country's unfolding medical crisis, one person at a time. >> woodruff: finally tonight, grading america's ability to prevent and respond to a terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction. margaret warner has the story. >> warner: more than eight years after the deadly anthrax attacks, the u.s. still isn't prepared to protect the public against a biological terrorist act. that was the word today from the congressionally chartered commission on the prevention of weapons of mass destruction proliferation. in an earlier 2008 report, this panel warned that it was likely that before the end of 2013, a weapon of mass destruction would be used somewhere in the world by terrorists. it recommended 17 steps to counter that.

in today's report, the commission gave the white house and congress an f in three of those areas. developing rapid response capability, providing effective congressional oversight, and recruiting the next generation of national security experts. it gave them four a's in other areas including reviewing current programs to secure dangerous pathogens and adopting an inter-agency bioforensic strategy. for more we're joined by the panel's chairman former democratic senator bob graham and its vice chairman former republican senator jim talent. gentlemen, welcome. thank you for being here. >> great to be here. >> warner: let's start with your assessment actually 14 months ago. is there any doubt in your mind-- and i'll begin you with senator graham-- but either of you, that the threat remains as you assessed it then. that within the next four years, it is likely or more likely than not that some terrorist somewhere in the world will use a weapon of mass destruction.

>> if anything, the odds that we gave a year ago, which was more likely than not, have probably gone up in the past 14 months. that is, it is higher than just a straight slightly more than 50-50 that some place on earth a terrorist group will use a weapon of mass destruction between now and the end of 2013. the reason for that is that accessibility, particularly a biological materials has increased the sophistication of al qaeda as we saw on christmas day as become if anything greater and more diffused. we believe that the risk is real and growing. >> warner: this was a unanimous finding. >> yeah, and we'll reach a probability by around 2013. of course we don't have intel, telling us the attack is going to occur in 2013. if you look at the trend lines it's a short-term risk. that was our point. this is not the next generation that has to worry about this. >> warner: when you say trend lines, briefly, what do you mean?

>> although we are doing things and making progress in particular areas as a government and with allies, they are active also. it's like we're running but they're running faster. >> warner: let's take one... the f's that i think made everyone the most nervous which was that a system still hadn't been developed to respond quickly to a bioterror attack. are you talking about what? preventing mass casualties? what do you mean by that? >> first, we mean deterrents. the reality is that if a terrorist gains access to a biological weapon, they're going to ask themselves where can we use this weapon to the greatest effect? so the degree to which you are prepared to respond to it becomes a significant amount of your deterrents, that it not be used against you. but if you are attacked, the adequacy of your response capabilities can reduce the number of casualties into the thousands, not the tens or hundreds of thousands. therefore, it will make it something less than a mass

destructive event. >> warner: senator talent, what is missing in that area? what hasn't been done? >> unfortunately about everything is missing. we've not stock piled the countermeasures. we didn't have enough vaccines for h2n2 with six months' notice. we don't have planned systems for distributing the countermeasures in the event of an attack. many cities won't know whether an attack has occurred. we don't have the devices to tell us that. we don't have the capacity to clean up afterwards. this is why we gave them an f because every link in the chain of response we call it a chain with links is ininadequate. there's really no reason for that. the chairman likes to point out correctly this is something we can do on our own. we don't really need international partners to do it and we should be doing it. >> warner: so why hasn't it happened? >> it hasn't happened, i think, first, because there's been a tendency to want to deny the existence. >> yes. >> people view a biological attack as seven letters in october of 2001. that was a terrible thing but

in scale it was much less than a mass attack. what we're talking about is a terrorist putting a slury of anthrax in the back of a truck with a dispensing device which makes it almost invisible, driving it through a major american city and potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of people. that's the scale that we think we're going to be dealing with unless we take some immediate action to raise our barriers against the attack or to be able to reduce its consequences. >> our establishments are used to the nuclear threats so new administrations hit the ground running. we gave the obama administration pretty good grades in nuclear. but they're very slow to recognize bio. it was true with clinton. it was true for bush. unfortunately, it's true for obama. we've been trying to tell them for the last year that they need to mount the learning curve more quickly. >> warner: you did though

senator talent give them a more mixed set of grades on steps that would prevent an attack. at least they've assessed where the dangerous pathogens are. just describe that a little bit. have they done at least some preventive work. >> they have. that's in the nature of a study though. and it was our recommendation. they did it. so we gave them an a on that. we have to see how they implement it. there are some centers in the government that are doing better. there's a committee in the congress, joe lieberman and susan collins' committee, that have been aggressive in pushing legislation that would cover a lot of these areas but that's one committee in one house of congress. that's not good enough. we're just on too short a time frame. >> warner: for instance on prevention i noticed you gave them just a d or a d-plus for actually tightening government restrictions on the labs where these pathogens are being used. >> yes. we've done several studies of what needs to be done. they're very consistent. we need to reduce the number of pathogens that we are subjecting

to scrutiny today. we're trying to monitor 80. we think in fact there are eight that are the most likely to be used by a terrorist group in a weapon. we also are suggesting that there be significant increases in uniformity. we have multiple agencies now that are assessing these labs and the standards from one lab to the other can be quite different. third, we think that at the international bioweapons convention which will be held in 2011, the united states needs to lead by example. we need to say, here's what we've done. you, other countries of the world, should see our standard as that to which you will aspire. >> warner: your former colleagues on capitol hill also came in for some criticism here. you basically gave an f for adequate committee oversight. what is the problem there? >> well, one of the reasons we're behind in bio as a government is that decision- making in the bio area is

fragmented. there's over two dozen officials in the executive branch. the senate confirmed officials who have a piece of the bio responsibility but none of them are full time. there's no senior political appointee on the nsc whose experience is primarily bio. congress is trying to oversee the department of homeland security which has most of this jurisdiction through 70 or 80 different committees or sub committees at this point. that oversight is not only not helpful but a negative. we're not the first commission to tell them to change that. this time we said, you've got to do it. we just gave them an f. they're not even trying to change it. >> warner: this is your first report card on this administration. are you going to keep monitoring this? >> yes. our commission expires at the end of february but we're going to set up a nonprofit bipartisan entity to continue to work with the congress, with the administration, implementing our recommendations. we're particularly going to be focused on the role of the citizen.

what can we do to better prepare individual americans to defend their own homes as well always contribute to their communities' defense? and we're going to issue another report card early in 2011. >> so very briefly, have you gotten indications from the white house and congress that they actually welcome this, senator talent? >> i think the president is going to talk about the need for better biopreparedness in the state of the union address which is a good sign. >> warner: senator jim talent, senator bob graham, thanks very much. thanks for your work. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day: the congressional budget office warned the nation's more than $1 trillion deficit could strangle the economy. that message came as president obama plans to call for a three- year freeze on some government spending. toyota suspended the u.s. sale of eight vehicle models to fix accelerator pedals that might stick. 2.3 million trucks and cars are involved. the auto maker will shut down

production in five plants in north america for a week in february to address the problem. for the record, toyota is a newshour funder. the newshour is always online. the newshour is always online. hari sreenivasan, in our newsroom, previews what's there. hari. >> sreenivasan: we have an update on venezuelan president hugo chavez's moves to jump- start the economy by devaluing the currency. that comes from michael shifter of the inter-american dialogue. the start of a series of viewpoints on climate change legislation. judy woodruff begins with peter molinaro of dow chemical company, with more conversations to follow. and get ready to respond to the president's state of the union message tomorrow night. find out how you can submit your own reaction videos to our youtube channel, and your comments to our blog. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. gwen. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you and good night.

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